OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/12883/X11R6_9_X11R7_Release_Candidate_3
Exploring the Future of Computingen-usCopyright 2001-2017, David Adamsadam+nospam@osnews.comThu, 14 Dec 2017 02:50:20 GMThttp://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gifOSNews.comhttp://www.osnews.com
R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68881
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68881Are they building the Radeon R300 modules by default now? I've been using them since RC2, and didn't have problems with them (only and only if I enabled EXA).

Can't find a changelog..Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68887
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68887EXA isn't supported on r300 & newer chips (enabling it do nothings on this chips). And i don't think r300 is enabled by default because it's still lockups too much hardware (radeon 9600 m10, radeon 9800 pro, ...).Mon, 05 Dec 2005 13:08:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsAt last mouse buttons are normal againhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68889
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68889The middle and right mousebuttons was switched in earlier versions, but rc3 fixes this!Mon, 05 Dec 2005 13:13:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsR300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68891
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68891So... Does anybody know when will we have 3d support for our radeons? Is it possible to add it now?Mon, 05 Dec 2005 13:23:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[2]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68892
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68892r300 was not included in the previous Mesa release.
It is now in the latest 6.4.1 (which was not supported by RC2 xorg-server), so yes, you can activate it now.
But XOrg wiki says EXA does not work with r300.

I finally finished installing the modular X yesterday, eliminating all the glitches I had, like middle mouse paste not working (I know why but still don't know where it's configured, so I have to use a symlink for now).
There are a lot of changes in modular X, not all packages are available (rman, gccgendep, ...), it brings a lot more packages to manage (220+ instead of 1, I had to create a specific script to update my nALFS packages file) but I think the reward will be great.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 13:26:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Ookaze)Commentsr300 exa?http://www.osnews.com/thread?68899
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68899Are they working on EXA for r300 then? What is the timeframe?Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:01:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (mariux)Commentswhats EXA?http://www.osnews.com/thread?68907
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68907but i run radeons in my linux boxes and hav never had any trouble getting 9200's up to 9800's working fine with 3D support. its hard to play UT withought it.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:19:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsEXA != DRIhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68909
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68909EXA is not 3d-acceleration, it is hardware acceleration of XRENDER, which will enable faster rendering of the 2d-desktop (fast composition and so on)

Not that I'm an nVidia lover, but I'm happy with how my 6600GT works under linux.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:43:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68916
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68916Because they are one of the best supported.
NVidia is far poorly supported than ATI cards : we have no FOSS driver with 3D acceleration.
For now, for 3D, I am stuck with NVidia proprietary drivers, which cause problems, because when things like EXA arrives, you can't even try to help NVidia add EXA support to its driver.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Ookaze)CommentsRE[2]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68921
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68921You're joking right? Nvidia is way more supported than ATI. Even their chipsets have made it into the kernel. You want real 3d performance on linux, use nvidia.
ATI is proprietary too, and slower to respond to linux.
The drivers that come with linux for ATi are software rendering.
All posts I read regarding Nvidia and EXA is that they are gearing up to support it when it comes out, but since its still at RC stage dont look for it.. Look on gaming forums and the nvidia forums.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:05:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[3]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68922
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68922I heared a while ago that the Nvidia drivers do not need EXA because they have their own 2D framework. I could be wrong?Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:17:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: r300 exa?http://www.osnews.com/thread?68924
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68924No one seems to work on exa support for r300, thus no timefreame...Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:21:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[4]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68926
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68926I heared a while ago that the Nvidia drivers do not need EXA because they have their own 2D framework. I could be wrong?

Yep! It's called RenderAccel and it's very fast but buggy. It works well on some combinations of video cards and driver version, but locks up system on others. It works fine for me. EXA will be supported by Nvidia, it's just a question of when that will be done.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:31:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)Commentsexa?http://www.osnews.com/thread?68929
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68929umm, we need graffix accelerated desktops? sounds lame to me... then again i run blackbox.

i prefer ati, drivers and cards are a lot simpler to set up and performance has always been great.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[3]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68932
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68932The drivers that come with linux for ATi are software rendering.

Wrong. Everything up to and including all r200 family hardware has high quality open source 3D drivers. Even the r300 family and up has working open source 3D drivers which are constantly being worked on and improved.

No it's not. Try using 3D with the FOSS driver of ATI and NVidia, you won't come back to tell me NVidia is better supported. ATI actually helps devs develop the 3D FOSS driver. NVidia helps only on 2D.

Even their chipsets have made it into the kernel

Yes, FOSS drivers for chipsets, because otherwise, often you could not use the motherboard under Linux with stability. But we're talking graphic card driver here, and it's a fact that nv driver does not accelerate 3D.

You want real 3d performance on linux, use nvidia

Which does not mean NVidia is better supported on Linux. That's what I use BTW.

ATI is proprietary too, and slower to respond to linux

Which is not a problem because I can recompile the driver for a new incompatible kernel and still have accelerated 3D. As a matter of fact, when the kernel changed to 4kb pages, I had to go on with the nv driver, as the NVidia binary one would not compile.

The drivers that come with linux for ATi are software rendering

No they are not.

All posts I read regarding Nvidia and EXA is that they are gearing up to support it when it comes out, but since its still at RC stage dont look for it.. Look on gaming forums and the nvidia forums.

That's why you run blackbox.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 16:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[4]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68953
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68953What idiot modded parent (Ookaze) down to 0? As soon as I get a vote back I'll mod parent up as someone obviously doesnät like reason and that ticks me off...Mon, 05 Dec 2005 16:58:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (DevL)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68954
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68954Actually EXA replaces the old XAA architecture which has many limitations on the operations that are accelerated. Nvidia did away with XAA and implemented acceleration on their own. The speed you get with Nvidia binary drivers running xcomposite is due to this.

EXA allows for xcomposite acceleration for other (modern) chipsets as well.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 16:58:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[4]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68956
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68956Wrong. Everything up to and including all r200 family hardware has high quality open source 3D drivers.

is this the 'ati' or 'radeon' driver? no flaming, this is a real question I have a rv250.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:02:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68961
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68961The "ati" and "radeon" drivers in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers are only 2D drivers. The DRI requires a kernel module (shipped with the linux kernel) and a 3D userspace library/driver (locate in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri ). For r100 hardware, it's radeon_dri.so, for r200 hardware it's r200_dri.so, for r300 harware it's r300_dri.so. These libraries are called from a DRI enabled Mesa GL library.

try using 3D with the propriatary driver of ATI (which totally destroys the foss driver in terms of performance), and the propriatary driver of NVidia. there is no contest. I have yet to get equivilent performance to windows with ati cards, yet nvidia is at least as good, if not better.

to sum it up, if you only use free software, ati drivers is better. if you use the best software available, nvidia drivers are so much better that this entire conversation seems rather silly.

Which is not a problem because I can recompile the driver for a new incompatible kernel and still have accelerated 3D. As a matter of fact, when the kernel changed to 4kb pages, I had to go on with the nv driver, as the NVidia binary one would not compile.

The nvidia-installer binary will compile the driver based on your kernel headers, so if you absolutely must go bleeding edge, its still a non issue. as for 4k pages, that had to do with specific incompatibilities, not because of the notorious instability of the linux ABI as you seem to imply.

the reason that ati helps foss is because their own drivers totally and completely suck. they are one of the worst things about ati cards on either windows or linux. nvidia on the other hand has phenomenal drivers, and because it is something of value they arent quite so quick to give them away. one of the reasons i use nvidia is because of the many, many problems i have had with ati drivers in the past, on both platforms. that means that they made money off of me because of the quality of their drivers, and it just wouldnt make sense for the (financially) to opensource. this is one of those exceptional circumstances, cause generally opensourcing drivers make a huge amount of sense.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:17:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68972
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68972I have ATI for one reason: Open Source drivers. Nothing else. I am waiting for a stable r300 driver so I can upgrade my ATI r250 card.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:32:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[3]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68973
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68973Oh great ... what a way to propel Linux into the future! Rather than having 1 package to manage, let's make things IMPOSSIBLY complex and make people/distros manage 220!

This is why Linux is more or less bound to stay still: One group is working on improving it greatly, while the other group is digging itself into a hole.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:33:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Tom K)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68976
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68976Sorry, but for all your boohooing about the performance of ATI's binary drivers, for me, and God knows how many others: they work. They work well. They play every 3D game available today, including quake4 and doom3. The only issue I've ever had with them is playing certain games with cedega and for that I blame cedega.

Compare this to my first (and only) experiences with nVidia's linux drivers with my old GF: total system lockups.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no comparison.

AdamMon, 05 Dec 2005 17:36:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsATI Drivershttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68977
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68977I have to agree with Mr. Anonymous here. ATI drivers are pretty terrible compared to NVidia's. Sure, they have some FOSS drivers, but as has been already mentioned, they only support a subset of their cards and the performance is pretty terrible.

I have a ATI Mobility XPress 200M, and the driver situation sucks hard. There's no FOSS driver (AFAIK), and I've gone through 4 versions of the proprietary driver, and none of them has worked for me.
2D mode works, but it's so slow that I can't stand using it. Scrolling down in a web browser is laggy.

Never had any problems with the nvidia drivers for my old desktop. Sure it was a pain to recompile for each new kernel, but it never failed to work, not once, when I did recompile it.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:40:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (leos)CommentsRE[4]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?68979
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68979X has been relatively stagnant for years because it was one package--that included everything from drivers to X applications. This is a good change, and one that will allow X to evolve more quickly.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[6]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68980
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68980Hello, I just wanted to add some comments to the nvidia drivers vs. ATI drivers from the point of view of a nvidia graphics chipset user (I never owned an ATI card). The problem is that someone here is trying to imply that nvidia support for Linux is bad, which is certainly not the case.

Maybe three years ago the nvidia drivers were bad. I remember them locking my system which had a geforce ddr (that is a geforce 1 card). Fortunatelly, drivers improved quickly and it's been ages since they locked my system. I use Slackware and the latest Linux kernel. They always compile without problems and performance is great.

Granted, when the 4k stacks kernel option was introduced, they wouldn't work. At several points in time (2 or 3 times IIRC), the drivers wouldn't compile with a new kernel. Remember these kernels were released after the nvidia driver was released. nvidia always solved these small compile problems in a matter of days or maybe one or two weeks in the worst case. For the impatient users, one or two days after the problem is detected, the nvidia people post patches in the web forums that you can apply to the extracted sources and made it compile again quickly.

So, all in all, my experience with nvidia cards under Linux has been great for the last 3 years. Certainly, nvidia's support for Linux is not bad. Drivers are stable, perform very well and are made by nvidia themselves. Whether you prefer open source drivers is a different question, but I wouldn't consider nvidia support bad, at all.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:59:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[6]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?68992
http://www.osnews.com/thread?68992Sorry, but for all your boohooing about the performance of ATI's binary drivers, for me, and God knows how many others: they work. They work well. They play every 3D game available today, including quake4 and doom3.

You're in a bit of denial over this. I simply cannot go out and buy a modern ATI graphics card, install some up to date drivers and have the card work 100%. I can with nVidia. The fact that much older cards work is all fine and well, but you're not going to get any kind of performance out of them for Doom 3 and Quake 4. In fact, you won't be able to play those games unless you seriously cripple the gameplay, and I doubt whether you'd be able to play them even then.

Compare this to my first (and only) experiences with nVidia's linux drivers with my old GF: total system lockups.

GeForces work 100%. Anything suggestion to the contrary is total crap. If it's a very modern GeForce with the latest drivers then there might have been one or two problems (as you get with Windows at times), but compare that to a modern ATI card you might buy - it simply won't work period. Every slightly older GeForce will work totally.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:26:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)Commentsexa for i810http://www.osnews.com/thread?69003
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69003Does anyone know anything about the state of the exa patch for i810-based cards? The xorg exa project page gives a link to the patch, but it won't apply cleanly to rc3. Is it being worked on? My life would be complete if I had exa to go with my i810 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:02:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[7]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69007
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69007You're in a bit of denial over this. I simply cannot go out and buy a modern ATI graphics card, install some up to date drivers and have the card work 100%.

I did just that with an X700 a few days ago, and could have just as easily done it with an X800.

GeForces work 100%. Anything suggestion to the contrary is total crap.

That maybe true now, but they sure didn't work when I last tried them, and suggesting they did is total crap.

AdamMon, 05 Dec 2005 19:09:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE[7]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69011
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69011GeForces work 100%. Anything suggestion to the contrary is total crap. If it's a very modern GeForce with the latest drivers then there might have been one or two problems (as you get with Windows at times), but compare that to a modern ATI card you might buy - it simply won't work period. Every slightly older GeForce will work totally.

Actually this isn't true at all. I've had serious hangs related to the propiretary nvidia drivers at various points in time. Also, anything post GeForce FX is no longer supported, which leaves my fully functional GF2 with the open driver. Which btw has had zero problems since I swithed to them.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:22:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69017
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69017to sum it up, if you only use free software, ati drivers is better. if you use the best software available, nvidia drivers are so much better that this entire conversation seems rather silly.

For quite a few people that free software aspect matters. And nvidia closed drivers are only available for x86/x86-64 platforms, so you can't use them eg. on a Macintosh. Closed is always closed. The discussion is not silly because we're just not comparing the closed source drivers - people do probably know nvidia has better closed drivers anyway, though the nvidia-people don't have any choice if the drivers don't work for them properly.

ATI might be topped by XGI, if the rumors are fulfilled. Even though XGI hw is not top-notch, it might be quite okay (speak about GF6600 levels which is quite modern) - and as ATI open source drivers are not really performance beasts even though they work, XGI might be the preferred choice for the FOSS community in the future. But I'll only believe when the 2D/3D drivers arrive.

XGI would also have the benefit of TV-out in OSS drivers, it's currently quite a pain with ATI (gatos).Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:53:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsNVidia's drivers good??http://www.osnews.com/thread?69018
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69018NVidia drivers may not be bad, but they aren't good, either. ACPI isn't even supported! Software Suspend works like shit. Today, it just promptly rebooted my system when trying to resume! Luckily, the FOSS drivers for the Ati Mobility 9200 in my laptop support power management and suspending just fine.

I agree though, NVidia may have decent propietary drivers when it comes to 3D performance. However, 2D performance sucks compared to the FOSS ati drivers 2D acceleration, most notably at scrolling.

With regard to the performance issues of the FOSS ati drivers... The performance has always been good for me, but then again, with an r200 class card I don't expect much performance anyway. And on top of that, no matter how shitty everyone likes to claim the Ati FOSS drivers are, they are still at least 100x better than the FOSS nvidia drivers.

In that regard, Ati is more friendly towards opensource than NVidia. But hey, chant for NVidia all you like.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:59:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsStop going back / forth over this; it's pointless!http://www.osnews.com/thread?69019
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69019Guys, stop bickering back and forth about NVidia vs. ATI drivers.

The facts are:

- Both companies provide SOME support for Linux, whether through opensource contributions or closed ones.

- You can get 3D acceleration running using either card.

- Stability is great some... and horrible for others. YOUR EXPERIENCE(S) WILL VARY, under either platform, as has been demonstrated through the diversity of driver feedback in this thread.

- Neither NVIDIA nor ATI provide nearly the level of resources that they do for Windows (or Macintosh, for that matter). Both companies are for-profit organizations, and as such, will always focus most efforts where the money is. And at the moment, Linux is more of a minority/hobbyiest market than a mainstream cashcow like the Windows platform.

There's also a very good reason that NVIDIA and ATI restrict contributions to the open-source community: to cover their own asses.

I love the OSS development model just as much as any tech nerd, but *we* have the luxery of embracing said philosophy at whim; companies are not always in the same position. Even if ATI and NVIDIA wanted to go 100% open-source, they couldn't. Why? because they share and cross-license technologies from other companies who choose to keep the technology closed/private...

...meaning --- If they opened their hardware/drivers, they'd be slapped with lawsuits all over the place. (They would expose trademark designs/secrets owned by OTHER companies.)

The only way for these companies to embrace OSS entirely would be to scrap their entire product line and start from scratch... which would suck horribly for everyone.

I, for one, am please that both companies have at least shown an interest in Linux as a platform. Yes, I wish they both did more... but I do respect them for doing a helluva lot more than many hardware-makers have. I also look forward to any other developments that both NVIDIA and ATI bring to the X11/Linux table.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:00:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Fusion)CommentsRE[8]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69020
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69020Also, anything ?pre? GeForce FX is no longer supported, which leaves my fully functional GF2 with the open driver.

Just to provide some more accurate details... The nvidia drive supports everything from geforce3 on (plus geforce2MX). A legacy driver supporting older chips back to TNT2 is still available from nvidia, though I don't know about its kernel compatibility.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_18897.htmlMon, 05 Dec 2005 20:07:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: Stop going back / forth over this; it's pointless!http://www.osnews.com/thread?69021
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69021I agree that mostly the discussion is pointless and is done in the hope of educating those masses that come from eg. closed source software world and don't care about anything else than if Quake4 happens to work on their computer (a modern PC) or not.

A nice "doomsday scenario" was just posted on LWN: http://lwn.net/Articles/162686/ - it gives some aspect to why there are people also here defending the fact that it's great ATI has also open source drivers.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:18:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[4]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69023
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69023Oh great ... what a way to propel Linux into the future! Rather than having 1 package to manage, let's make things IMPOSSIBLY complex and make people/distros manage 220!

Linux Is Poo you are already the official anti-Linux troll at OS News. You don't have to post a negative comment for EVERY article even slightly related to Linux (Xorg has BSD license) to prove that point. Especially because a few times that urge pushes you from the level of "I gave almost insightful commentary" to "I am making myself look like an idiot."

This time you are so wrong I had to laugh. The cutting up of Xorg is seen as the largest advancement in the open software Xserver EVER. But cutting it up, the different parts (especially drivers) can be maintained independently. New parts can be improved and released with a full Xorg release having to take place. Nvidia and ATI pratically begged for a modular Xorg so that it is easier for them to make their closed drivers.

This is the most wrong you have ever been. This will make Xorg EASIER to manage because now people can specialize on one part rather than having to grok the entire thing to make small improvements. This is step one towards the path of a modern Xserver.

Most distros manage over 1000 packages. Adding a few for the Xorg is not a big deal. In fact most distros like that fact that now video drivers can be loaded when needed and that problems with Xorg can be pin-pointed without having to go through the entire code.

I'm not going to tell you to quit trolling because its obvious to any regular reader here that your hatred of Linux is based on more than common sense or logic- you hate it because of a flaw in your personality. But for the sake of your cause, butt out when you know NOTHING about what you are commenting on. There will be plenty of package manager threads and distro reviews for you to attack with your blind passion.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:27:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (poofyhairguy)CommentsRE: r300 exa?http://www.osnews.com/thread?69024
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69024Are they working on EXA for r300 then? What is the timeframe?

EXA for newer ATI cards will come when the DRI drivers for those cards are stable. So after all the Intel cards have EXA, after the Nvidia binary drivers have EXA, and after the ATI open source drivers for the older cards have EXA.

A new ATI card is just about the worst you can have if you want an composited Linux desktop.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:29:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (poofyhairguy)CommentsRE[9]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69025
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69025Also, anything ?pre? GeForce FX is no longer supported[..]

heh, thanks. Of course I meant *pre* GeForce FX. That's what you get for being hurried.

As for compatibility, the old driver stops at 2.6.10 or 12 iirc.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:40:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: Stop going back / forth over this; it's pointless!http://www.osnews.com/thread?69047
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69047All of this is my fault. I did not intend to start a troll.

It all comes from a misunderstanding, because I said NVidia support of drivers on Linux was poorer than ATI.
Some people thought I talked about performance. Of course I'm not talking about perf, but about support.
Someone summed up the problem quite well : no ACPI support, no suspend support, ... It works pretty well with the FOSS nv driver, but it is only 2D accel, because NVidia won't help on 3D. That's their choice, but ATI helps on 3D, so I'm forced to admit that their support is better. They both provide binary drivers, so that does not count for the support cause.

This support of FOSS is more important than anyone think. Like I said, I use NVidia cards with binary driver for now, but I have no assurance I will be able to in the future.

And it's just not true to say that Linux is not a mainstream cashcow market for graphic cards maker. You are still of those that believe that NVidia did these drivers by love from the bottom of their heart ? Wake up. I was using Linux when their was no such drivers. They started providing them because Linux workstations were entering in the hollywood studios to make films, and their drivers were good trojans. Do you think you would find Linux desktops with NVidia cards in those studios without the binary drivers ?
ATI, having no interest at first, came later with binary drivers, guess what, for old professional cards used in these studios (FireGL things).
Once you understand the true reasons for these drivers on Linux, you can start to pray for the studios to continue using Linux desktops, or that Linux gains huge acceptance as personal desktops.

So for me, anyway, the only true real support to Linux is actually the one showed in the FOSS drivers.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:38:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Ookaze)CommentsRE[5]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69055
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69055Steps for you to follow:

1. Shut up
2. Look at my posting history
3. Think

I haven't blatantly trolled in a while. I'll sometimes stick in a little thing here or there that irks pansy-asses like you, but most people don't think twice about it.

Anyway, yeah sure, I suppose it is a pretty big advancement, but saying it will make things easier is a lie. I can see it now:

[Some Linux Forum]
"I installed the X.Org 7.0.2 core with libWindowLayer 3.28, along with NVIDIA drivers 1.72.32.beta1, Composite extension 1.00.7.9, and a few other extensions from the 7.0.3 pre-release. Now my ____ doesn't work."
"Oh, that driver doesn't work with that core version. You need to run core 7.0.1 or upgrade libWindowLayer to 3.30. It's also unstable if you use Composite with this release."

*groan*

Prepare yourselves.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:45:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Tom K)CommentsRE[8]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69057
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69057did just that with an X700 a few days ago, and could have just as easily done it with an X800.

No you can't. ATI's drivers are simply don't cut the mustard and are extremely unreliable, and you will simply not get the performance needed out of any open soucre ones, if you can find them.

That maybe true now, but they sure didn't work when I last tried them, and suggesting they did is total crap.

Well, I hope you enjoy life on the planet you're living on and I can't think what you're doing. I've been using nVidia's drivers for years on various incarnations of the GeForce, have worked 100% and for all-round 2D and 3D performance they are all you can buy.

As for ATI, other people more in the know than I completely agree with me as well. ATI, open source?! Bah:

Also, anything post GeForce FX is no longer supported, which leaves my fully functional GF2 with the open driver.

Absolutely not true. I have several GeForce 4 machines and the drivers support them 100% all the way back to the trusty GeForce 2 (minus one or two of the older variants). Support does not end with the FX. If you're going back to something like a TNT then you're better off using the open source X drivers. Any 3D performance is likely to be meaningless on it at any rate.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:54:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)Commentsre: questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69066
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69066how do you hav any ground to say 'no you cant' to sumone who just told you they were using ati drivers and playing games just fine....

i hav had the nvidia drivers completly destroy linux installs, and b buggy and crash...

the ATI drivers work and work well, the open source ati drivers are by no means terribly fast but they do work and are good for the purists.

(by the way im the guy running blackbox)

too linux is poo, the only things i could say to you would get my IP banned...Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:02:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[6]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69073
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69073"I installed the X.Org 7.0.2 core with libWindowLayer 3.28, along with NVIDIA drivers 1.72.32.beta1, Composite extension 1.00.7.9, and a few other extensions from the 7.0.3 pre-release. Now my ____ doesn't work."

Well, exactly. It's not the fact that you get this sort of answer:

"Oh, that driver doesn't work with that core version. You need to run core 7.0.1 or upgrade libWindowLayer to 3.30. It's also unstable if you use Composite with this release."

It's the fact that people go arsing about with their system without leaving the stable, default stuff alone, and then they whinge and expect it to work. And then people switch composite and RenderAccel on and whinge even more when it crashes!

I blame some of these Linux desktop people who are promoting fancy 3D desktop stuff too much as a solution. You need far too much experimental stuff to get anywhere near to running all the stuff shown in those fancy screenshots and videos. I know some people are doing good work on this front and are realistic about the current limitations, but other people are running away with producing pie-in-the-sky demos in front of a gullible internet audience that are simply never going to be usable by users out there.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:10:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[9]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69076
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69076how about you going to nvidias site and checking out which ones are still supported in any recent releases? I'll be waiting here for your appologies.. The GeForce 2 variants that are still supported are not actually based on the same chip..Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:13:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: re: questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69081
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69081how do you hav any ground to say 'no you cant' to sumone who just told you they were using ati drivers and playing games just fine....

Because he says he's playing Doom 3 and Quake 4. The only drivers and cards you can use to play those games reliably and with any sort of performance are nVidia cards and drivers.

How can somebody say to me that nVidia drivers are unstable when they're just plainly not, and ATI's open source drivers are good enough to play Doom 3 and Quake 4 when they are miles away from doing so? The proprietary ATI drivers really are unstable and just haven't had the effort put in then nVidia's have done.

i hav had the nvidia drivers completly destroy linux installs, and b buggy and crash...

Have you tried not arsing about with your system? No nVidia straightforward nVidia install will do that, and you can't destroy a Linux install. You single boot, or Live CD boot into it and remove the drivers or boot into a different kernel.

the ATI drivers work and work well

Nowhere near as well as nVidia's.

the open source ati drivers are by no means terribly fast but they do work and are good for the purists.

Which means you're not going to run Doom 3 and Quake 4 on it then. As for open source ATI drivers:

The scope for open source IT driver improvement is extremely limited.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:24:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE: NVidia's drivers good??http://www.osnews.com/thread?69089
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69089NVidia drivers may not be bad, but they aren't good, either. ACPI isn't even supported! Software Suspend works like shit. Today, it just promptly rebooted my system when trying to resume! Luckily, the FOSS drivers for the Ati Mobility 9200 in my laptop support power management and suspending just fine.

*cough*FUD*cough*

I don't think NVidia can be blamed that their proprietary drivers don't work properly on your ATI-based laptop, but whatever.

NVidia doesn't support suspend any more than any other third-party application/hardware/service supports suspend. The capability is built-in, but if it doesn't work you're on your own, it's a reality with linux.

The binary drivers suspend to RAM perfectly well on my Dell laptop, as they do for many other users. Nvidia even provides an alternate AGP driver to use if it doesn't work with your particular hardware setup. And they document it. Short of having one of their engineers come over to my house and config my xorg.conf for me, that's pretty good support as far as I'm concerned.

And if all else, the FOSS nv driver suspends too.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:31:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (elsewhere)CommentsRE: EXA != DRIhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69091
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69091EXA is a completely new acceleration arhitecture that among other things supports render acceleration, unlike the now used XAA.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:33:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[10]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69093
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69093how about you going to nvidias site and checking out which ones are still supported in any recent releases?

The GeForce 2 variants that are still supported are not actually based on the same chip..

So what? They're much older cards, and I specifically stated that older variants like the GTS, 256 etc. (and they pre-date Linux support by a long way) weren't supported, but then again, they're not supported in the current Windows drivers either:

All that stuff about cards prior to GeForce FX (of which there are many variants) not being supported is crap then, isn't it?

I'll be waiting here for your appologies..

You're going to be waiting a long time then.Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:39:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE: NVidia's drivers good??http://www.osnews.com/thread?69097
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69097ACPI isn't even supported! Software Suspend works like shit. Today, it just promptly rebooted my system when trying to resume!

You may want to have a look around at the average suspend/hibernate support on your average system, including on Windows. It's non-existant.

Today, it just promptly rebooted my system when trying to resume! Luckily, the FOSS drivers for the Ati Mobility 9200 in my laptop support power management and suspending just fine.

I somehow doubt that nVidia is going to support all that stuff on your ATI based laptop ;-).

no matter how shitty everyone likes to claim the Ati FOSS drivers are, they are still at least 100x better than the FOSS nvidia drivers.

No one cares about the FOSS drivers - people care about getting working drivers. I thought a lot of people out there wanted to encourage porprietary development on Linux by companies out there :-).Mon, 05 Dec 2005 22:46:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsComposition, RENDER, R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69107
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69107It is sad that after years spend from the famous XFree86-xorg fork mail list still so boring. Bugs, bugs, bugs. Look like real core X developers disappearing and rest are keep trying to fix here and there but never touch anything serious. Nobody (may be EXA guys?.. no, too cosmetic) step forward and do something that all expect from true open source big project - fresh, yong, fast, stable, cutting-edge features. I see xorg team like small town under the siedge, that put all force to protect sacred antique X11 protocol. But we all see - standard it or not - ATI and NVIDIA still make buggy drivers. Both have huge developer groups and able to make drivers for anything - X11 or Win32 or whatever you can imagine. Cairo- shmairo, glitz, xgl - it is too OS X - like, where is innovations ? I know an answer, "when modular tree finished", "when GPU specs be opened"... But i sow such before fork. Vista is coming ...Mon, 05 Dec 2005 23:06:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (STTS)CommentsRE[9]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69125
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69125No you can't. ATI's drivers are simply don't cut the mustard and are extremely unreliable,

Yes, I can. And have, as I mentioned. Deal with it. Maybe your experience with ATIs drivers is from years ago (as mine is with nVidia's drivers), but ATIs drivers are certainly more than capable (performance and stability wise) of playing quake4 and doom3. You can disagree with me all you want, but that won't suddenly make you right.

And there were even drivers before the v1.0 release, if I recall correctly. So there's no way that the GTS and 256 pre-date nVidia's linux support by a long way. Nice try. Care to pass off another lie?

AdamEdited 2005-12-05 23:47Mon, 05 Dec 2005 23:41:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsIf ATI supports FOSS so wellhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69150
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69150How come I can't get decent speed with a radeon 9200? How come to get that speed I require the binary drivers? Which don't work all that great. Nvidia on the other hand seems to work flawlessly, no crashes, RANDR from the beginning not till half way through this year.

If you want FOSS drivers don't go with either Nvidia or ATI, go with someone else. Becuase their FOSS support really sucks. And please don't pimp up ATI saying they have great FOSS support because that is untrue. If they did have then the higher end radeons would work with the FOSS drivers almost as fast as their binary ones but they don't.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:17:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Richard James)CommentsRE[7]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69154
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69154Heh, precisely.

And then the fan boys scoop it up and proceed to march around on every forum on the planet proclaiming how superior and awesome Linux is, posting those very same screenshots.

Then some poor unsuspecting user sees this, decides to try Linux, and is sorely disappointed when it just looks more or less like the same old Windows that he is used to -- but slower and with a longer boot time.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:27:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Tom K)CommentsRE[11]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69155
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69155Now I've really have had enough of your bullshit. My GeForce 2 would predate linux support from nvidia? By a long way even? My ass. It was supported up until 7174 or something like that. Then they dropped it as a "legacy" card. Meaning newer drivers needed for newer kernels won't work for it. You really should read up before calling people liars to their face, asshole.

Just face it: You said GeForces work 100%. Anything suggestion to the contrary is total crap. If it's a very modern GeForce with the latest drivers then there might have been one or two problems (as you get with Windows at times), but compare that to a modern ATI card you might buy - it simply won't work period. Every slightly older GeForce will work totally.

this is the definition for "Crap" I think. And finally, just because you've never had any problems doesn't mean someone who had did something wrong, you arrogant twit.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:27:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[5]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69159
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69159"one of the reasons i use nvidia is because of the many, many problems i have had with ati drivers in the past, on both platforms. that means that they made money off of me because of the quality of their drivers, and it just wouldnt make sense for the (financially) to opensource. this is one of those exceptional circumstances, cause generally opensourcing drivers make a huge amount of sense."

Sorry, I ddon't buy this. Quality open source nVidia drivers doesn't increase sales of ATI cards, it increases sales of nVidia cards which from nVidia's POV has got to be a Good Thing (TM).Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:44:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (DevL)CommentsRE[8]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69160
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69160Can you not just shutup troll, there is more to life than boot time. Atleast I dont need virus checkers, firewalls adn spyware apps, fragmentation anyone?Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:47:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (SlackerJack)CommentsYMMVhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69165
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69165From the wealth of slightly off topic comments to this piece of news, I think it's safe to say that your mileage may vary no matter what type of graphic chip and set of drivers you stick in your Linux box...Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:51:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (DevL)CommentsRE[4]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69182
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69182No it's not. Try using 3D with the FOSS driver of ATI and NVidia, you won't come back to tell me NVidia is better supported. ATI actually helps devs develop the 3D FOSS driver. NVidia helps only on 2D.

Is that why ATI refused to release the specs for the R300 and up? If you call this help...

In my opinion, they are both equally guilty. Okay, the R200 driver works relatively well, but the chip is relatively weak for newer games. Hell, it got some performance issues at rendering my OpenGL screensaver in KDE! Of course, not many laptop chips can render stuff smoothly in 1400x1050, but that is the native resolution of my LCD.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:12:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Wrawrat)CommentsRE[9]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69191
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69191Hmm, neither do I. :-)

Oh, and fragmentation? Yeah, here comes the clue train: Every filesystem is subject to some level of fragmentation. Period.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:24:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Tom K)CommentsOK- The story in short is this:http://www.osnews.com/thread?69211
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69211OK- The story in short is this:
-NVIDIA's closed drivers ARE better. Period. In fact, they have been good enough for long enough that it completely killed open driver development for NVIDIA cards. (Please note that good enough is far from perfect)
-ATI's drivers have been dodgey as hell. This has promted a large amount of open source development. For cards older than the ATI 8500 the open source drivers are the only option. For cards with up to Rx2xx the open source driver is a superior choice for 2d acceleration, or when the closed driver fails (and fail it will). I expect that the open source r300 will achieve similar results with all but the the very top tier of ATI cards within a point release of Xorg or two.

What cards do I buy? ATI's. I refuse to be a the mercy of any closed hardware (driver wise) or software vendor. Period. Do I use ATI's closed driver? Yes. Am I god damn happy that I have reasonably well developed open drivers there? Yip!

There is a day coming when NVIDIA will drop support for a couple of generations of legacy cards. I'd rather not have that card on that day...Tue, 06 Dec 2005 03:38:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Shade)Comments8174 and X RC3...http://www.osnews.com/thread?69270
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69270Hi!

I've just compiled X.Org 6.9 RC3 on my OpenSUSE10 box and also got the nVIDIA 8174 drivers working. After some little fonts tweaking (antialiasing and sub-pixel hinting) everything works almost great, almost, because I'm experiencing small problem, my KDM screen repaints veeeeery slowly... It doesn't happen with the "nv" driver, but it's not very annoing, so I can live with that...
I'm using GF3 Ti200 and I'm pretty sure that they'll drop support for this chip pretty soon , but maybe they'll publish specifications of this (and few older) GPUs, so we will get a great FOSS driver that will kick ATI's butt Tue, 06 Dec 2005 14:32:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsBoot time?http://www.osnews.com/thread?69279
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69279Why are alot of people here claiming Linux has slow boot times? Im using arch linux and it boots up around 20Seconds or so. Or are you people talking about the boot time of just the X Server?Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:04:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsACPI BUG! BUG! BUG?http://www.osnews.com/thread?69299
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69299As I said few lines above, I got X.Org RC3 on my SuSE and I'm having a PROBLEM!
X server locks my acpi interface and this makes ACPID unable to start, it returns following error message: "/proc/acpi/event: device or resource busy".
Is anyone experiencing anything like this? Is there any way to disable X server ACPI support? Do I actually need it ?
I've already tried Option "NoPM" "true" but it didn't help...
It doesn't matter if I use nv, or NVIDIA driver.
Report to bugzilla?Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:54:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE: If ATI supports FOSS so wellhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69315
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69315That's how troll starts : because some guys like you never seem to understand what they read.

How come I can't get decent speed with a radeon 9200?

Despite the fact that I specifically said some people mistake support for performance, you still made this mistake again. Amazing !!

How come to get that speed I require the binary drivers?

Because the FOSS driver developers still have less informations than the binary drivers one. Simple.

Nvidia on the other hand seems to work flawlessly, no crashes, RANDR from the beginning not till half way through this year

That's just not true. There seems to be no more crashes now, for features of 2-3 years ago. In case you did not realise it, we are now in the Composite area, since 1 year, and your X server will crash with Composite and 3D accel activated. It's even said in the doc that it is unstable, so that's why they don't activate it by default.

If you want FOSS drivers don't go with either Nvidia or ATI, go with someone else

Why ? I don't only want FOSS drivers, I want efficient FOSS drivers. That does not mean I should abandon my NVidia hardware.

Becuase their FOSS support really sucks

I agree.

And please don't pimp up ATI saying they have great FOSS support because that is untrue

I never said that, I said ATI support was better. If you're stuck without binary drivers, you'll understand what I mean. It happened to me on a laptop.

If they did have then the higher end radeons would work with the FOSS drivers almost as fast as their binary ones but they don't

I agree.
But saying that this situation is fine won't lead to improvement.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:19:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Ookaze)CommentsRE[3]: NVidia's drivers good??http://www.osnews.com/thread?69323
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69323Actually, a lot of people care about FOSS drivers.

Most (read, just about everyone) people don't - they want something that will work some time this century.

You do not, in any way shape or form, represent all linux users, so please don't thrust your misinformed and misguided opinions on the rest of us.

So 1251 is recent is it? That's over four bloody years ago. Pick a random nVidia driver build out of the air did you? Recent Windows drivers don't support the GTS, 256 or TNT either as I've pointed out. Change in driver architecture? nVidia just drop support as others do, like ATI? Who knows? Shit happens.

Twit.

So there's no way that the GTS and 256 pre-date nVidia's linux support by a long way. Nice try. Care to pass off another lie?

The cards do pre-date Linux support - those cards were around way before that date. The TNT is about 1998 and the GTS etc. are about 2000 from what I remember. 1998 and 2000 < 2001.

Whichever way you look at it though it's totally irrelevant to the actual discussion - your bullshit about support ending before GeForce FXs. Not bloody true.

Don't try and pick up on stuff I've written in reply to you - you're wrong, OK?Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:53:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[4]: NVidia's drivers good??http://www.osnews.com/thread?69329
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69329
Most (read, just about everyone) people don't - they want something that will work some time this century.

Please show me the scientifically conducted survey which has to coming to this conclusion. If you can't, then please stop spouting this ill-informed opinion.

I never have. I have no problems with anyone using whatever video card they want to under linux as long as it does what they need.

AdamTue, 06 Dec 2005 16:56:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE[13]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69330
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69330
The cards do pre-date Linux support - those cards were around way before that date. The TNT is about 1998 and the GTS etc. are about 2000 from what I remember. 1998 and 2000 < 2001.

And nVidia had drivers for prior to the release I pointed out on their website, moron. Hell, even before their XFree86 4* releases they supported utah-glx. So there is no f--king way that the GTS pre-dates nVidia's linux support "by a long way".

your bullshit about support ending before GeForce FXs. Not bloody true.

I have never once, on this forum or any other, said anything about the GeForce FXs, idiot. You're thinking (assuming you're even capable of that) of someone else.

AdamTue, 06 Dec 2005 17:00:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE[12]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69335
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69335My GeForce 2 would predate linux support from nvidia? By a long way even? My ass. It was supported up until 7174

The discussion was about GeForces before the MXs and such like - stuff like the 256 and GTS which date from about 2000. The TNT dates from 1998. You might want to read before you post dumbass.

this is the definition for "Crap" I think. And finally, just because you've never had any problems doesn't mean someone who had did something wrong, you arrogant twit.

That's the definition of someone arsing about with their system and blaming it on the drivers. If you install nVidia drivers on any supported system and don't muck about with your really cool new RenderAccel or composite stuff they work, 100% every time. Did you read that link I pointed to above?

As everyone knows, including ID software, the open source drivers do not provide good performance for games by any stretch:

You may well get something to run, but it's more like luck than anything else. The breadth of support and quality in multiple situations like TV-out, dual monitors and mobile support is way behind nVidia.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:15:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[8]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69336
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69336And then the fan boys scoop it up and proceed to march around on every forum on the planet proclaiming how superior and awesome Linux is, posting those very same screenshots.

Oh I'm a big Linux supporter in a lot of ways, but people just have to be realistic about the current limitations of universal 3D and hardware acceleration support, especially on the driver front.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:19:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[9]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69340
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69340Oh I'm a big Linux supporter in a lot of ways, but people just have to be realistic about the current limitations of universal 3D and hardware acceleration support, especially on the driver front.

Thank God, we agree on something :-)

AdamTue, 06 Dec 2005 17:23:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE[6]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69345
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69345I haven't blatantly trolled in a while. I'll sometimes stick in a little thing here or there that irks pansy-asses like you, but most people don't think twice about it.

Guess we have to thank you for not "blatantly trolling for a while". Gee, thank you!
Did you actually bother to read what you post, /before/ you post it, or is it just an uncontrollable reflex?

GilboaTue, 06 Dec 2005 17:47:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (gilboa)CommentsRE[14]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69346
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69346And nVidia had drivers for prior to the release I pointed out on their website, moron. Hell, even before their XFree86 4* releases they supported utah-glx.

Before what? Since those were actually the first officially released nVidia drivers for Linux (pre 1.0 isn't a release, just so you know - that's why they're not listed on the website you twit!). Anything else before just isn't Linux support. You're labouring over a non-existant point which you can't even get right.

So there is no f--king way that the GTS pre-dates nVidia's linux support "by a long way".

Of course it does, especially considering the actual date and considering how long the drivers took to actually stabilise, and it took until at least the 1.0-44xx drivers to actually be good. As far as I'm concerned support only actually started about there. You might be used to shite ATI drivers, the rest of us aren't.

You're avoiding the actual issue at the root of this thread again - support did not end with the FXs and the shock that seven and five year old cards are no longer supported. Which if you'd actually further read back was the root of this whole thread.

I have never once, on this forum or any other, said anything about the GeForce FXs, idiot. You're thinking (assuming you're even capable of that) of someone else.

:

Also, anything post GeForce FX is no longer supported, which leaves my fully functional GF2 with the open driver. Which btw has had zero problems since I swithed to them.

Which wasn't written by you but you then decided to wade in over something that wasn't the actual point and you're even wrong about. So what have you actually been replying to? You don't just wade into threads and conversations without actually seeing what the whole thing was about. It's called reading and listening before writing and speaking.

I know you've been hanging on for my every written word for the past day, but I've got better things to do......Edited 2005-12-06 17:53Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:47:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[10]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69347
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69347Thank God, we agree on something :-)

....which means admitting that ATI's support of Linux is crap, never has been any good and getting them to pull their fingers out. Painting over it by saying you can use open source drivers is laughable. They're not co-operating on that front:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/airlied/17942.htmlTue, 06 Dec 2005 17:50:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[15]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69351
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69351
Before what? Since those were actually the first officially released nVidia drivers for Linux (pre 1.0 isn't a release, just so you know - that's why they're not listed on the website you twit!). Anything else before just isn't Linux support. You're labouring over a non-existant point which you can't even get right.

They released source code to the utal-glx project. That consistutes support, whether you like it or not, idiot.

Which wasn't written by you

So you admit you were wrong. It's about time.

AdamTue, 06 Dec 2005 18:00:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE[11]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69352
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69352No, it means admitting that the driver situation isn't great. If you buy any video card off the shelf at your local computer store, whether it's ATI, Matrox, SiS, or nVidia, there's an increased chance you'll have problems with that card in linux vs windows.

And, finally, I'm done with you. You're way too stupid to actually comprehend any sentence with more than one noun.

The discussion was about GeForces before the MXs and such like - stuff like the 256 and GTS which date from about 2000. The TNT dates from 1998. You might want to read before you post dumbass.

Yes, the cards came out on the market before the drivers. However, that doesn't mean that they predate the support, since they were avaliable *and* supported for quite a while.

That's the definition of someone arsing about with their system and blaming it on the drivers. If you install nVidia drivers on any supported system and don't muck about with your really cool new RenderAccel or composite stuff they work, 100% every time. Did you read that link I pointed to above?

No, arrogant twit is the one who thinks things must be as you said, because you said it and you are the final and end all authority. Now, in my mind, if I have problems, and I remove something, and the problems goes away, that thing that was taken out was the cause. For me that was the binary nvidia drivers. No matter how much you yell, whine and sniffle will change that. Also, you are quite wrong in trying to imply that everyone who have a different experience from you is some kind of ricer. Did I play with RenderAccel? Yes. Did I find it too darn unstable and quit using it. Yes. Did it stop my problems? No. Where did anyone say I or everyone else who had problems with those binary drivers where using RenderAccel or anything else funky? Nowhere, you just can't refute it, and apparently you also can't admit you are telling rosy fariytales, so you pull the good old "ad hominem". Disgraceful.

As everyone knows, including ID software, the open source drivers do not provide good performance for games by any stretch:

As pointed out before *well supported* doesn't just mean performance. I have no use for a car that makes 0-60 in 3 seconds, and blow up after 5. Now, I've never said all releases were bad, but they definitely weren't gold all of them. So if I compare to the system I have there that uses the open drivers for ati (using a radeon 7500) there is no doubt which one is the better supported. Games isn't everything, but I assume that's news for you.

You may well get something to run, but it's more like luck than anything else. The breadth of support and quality in multiple situations like TV-out, dual monitors and mobile support is way behind nVidia.

Sure, until *they* decide to drop it as legacy. Then you are screwed. Which is perfectly within their rights, but that doesn't make the card any better supported..Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:19:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous)CommentsRE[12]: R300http://www.osnews.com/thread?69366
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69366If you buy any video card off the shelf at your local computer store, whether it's ATI, Matrox, SiS, or nVidia, there's an increased chance you'll have problems with that card in linux vs windows.

Nice fob-off.

ou're way too stupid to actually comprehend any sentence with more than one noun.

Oooh.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:42:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[16]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69367
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69367They released source code to the utal-glx project. That consistutes support, whether you like it or not, idiot.

It's not a 1.0 release of their drivers nor was it ever officially supported by nVidia. You're wrong twit-features.

So you admit you were wrong. It's about time.

Considering how so totally wrong you actually are about the non-existant point you're making and you're stirring around to make it look otherwise, I find that funny. Nice way of picking out one sentence I wrote. Brilliant that one.

No, it's just that you've replied to something that was never actually the root issue in this thread. You jumped in later without reading - as I've pointed out. If it wasn't written by you then keep your nose out.

Way to go to copy my use of bold for emphasis dumbass!Edited 2005-12-06 18:48Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:45:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[17]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69370
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69370Hey asswipe, writers have been using bold for emphasis for centuries. You're too f--king stupid to realize it.

AdamTue, 06 Dec 2005 18:58:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (adamk)CommentsRE: EXA != DRIhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69375
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69375Correct, EXA works fine with r300 (slowish) the r300 does not support XRENDER yet which will be good once it's out.

However, that doesn't mean that they predate the support, since they were avaliable *and* supported for quite a while.

They do pre-date the support from nVidia. nVidia only starting supporting Linux with their own drivers. Little contributions of code do not count nor should it ever be taken of support being taken seriously by any company. nVidia were never going to back up the support you're talking about, and they were certainly never going to add features like TV-out, or, you know, any serious 3D performance that anybody actually cares about nor were they going to release their specs to OSS projects. Now that's support and that's what would have constituted it.

No, arrogant twit is the one who thinks things must be as you said, because you said it and you are the final and end all authority.

I am when it's right.

For me that was the binary nvidia drivers. No matter how much you yell, whine and sniffle will change that.

Good for you. For everyone else who did it properly and actually didn't muck about with their system and looked for any issues at all with the latest nVidia drivers, and actually knew what they'd fix (in which case you stick with what you have - just like the Windows drivers) we were all fine. And I've used just about all versions of nVidia's drivers on Linux and Windows as well as ATI ones. I certainly didn't switch to ATI as a bloody solution! Nothing is going to change that and neither is the evidence of how well nVidia's drivers do work beyond your meaningless experience.

As an individual who happened to have had a problem with your system, you don't count, just as I've never considered any problem I've had to be a problem with the drivers if others have been working absolutely fine. That was the case with nVidia, it wasn't the case with ATI because the quality of their drivers just isn't good enough and the 3D and TV-out features are non-existant in any OSS drivers.

The point is that ATI's quality of support in their drivers fall way short of what's required, and the OSS drivers simply cannot support the breadth of features required from a graphics card like 3D performance and multiple displays. If your drivers don't do that you've wasted your money, haven't you?

As pointed out before *well supported* doesn't just mean performance.

We're talking about graphics cards, used to play games and for 3D support here..... And while we're on the subject, how well is TV-out, multi-monitor and other features doing in OSS drivers?

I have no use for a car that makes 0-60 in 3 seconds, and blow up after 5.

We're talking about graphics cards (performance) here which the moron above claims he uses OSS drivers for to play Quake 4 and Doom 3 adequately. They aren't good enough for that, quite clearly, and you actually have to patch to get anywhere near close to the performance you'll need to run them.

Now, I've never said all releases were bad, but they definitely weren't gold all of them.

No they weren't, and neither were some of the Windows drivers, as always with graphics cards. You then stick with what you've got until there is a version that is stable and actually fixes something for you.

Do you think all of ATI's driver releases were gold?! Bloody hell, none of them were or are. You also have to be wary and know exactly what problem even the latest Windows drivers (any vendor) will fix as well. If it works and nothing is wrong then damn well leave it!

Games isn't everything, but I assume that's news for you.

If you'd actually read the comments you'd find out it was. Nice way to actually avoid the issue.

Sure, until *they* decide to drop it as legacy. Then you are screwed.

Pardon? So when ATI drops support in their drivers how is that different? Not that they ever added support for TV-out etc. on All in Wonder cards etc. with any great enthusiasm or quality, or ever. When open source developers can't get access to the specs (or get an NDA) for the latest ATI or nVidia cards and drivers so that many features are never, ever supported, how on Earth does that make the situation any better?

Which is perfectly within their rights, but that doesn't make the card any better supported..

It does when it actually works. Support == specs (which only the vendor knows with graphics cards) and that it actually works. Neither is the case with OSS drivers, as unfortunate as that is.Edited 2005-12-06 19:30Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:23:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[18]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69380
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69380Hey asswipe, writers have been using bold for emphasis for centuries. You're too f--king stupid to realize it.

Yer. It would have been really great if you actually though for yourself, were actually being original and had started using it of your own accord, but you didn't. You started putting stuff in bold when I did.

However, we've gone way off-topic now because you're just plain wrong.Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:28:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (segedunum)CommentsRE[15]: Questionhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69381
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69381We're talking about graphics cards (performance) here which the moron above claims he uses OSS drivers for to play Quake 4 and Doom 3 adequately.

Well, I'm the one who brought up Quake4 and Doom3 into the discussion, so I assume you're talking about me despite the fact that you're the only moron here.

Now, if you'd be so kind, please point out where I said that I used OSS drivers for playing Quake4 and Doom3? Because I never did. Once again you demonstrate your inability to understand even the simplest of sentences.

I have also used older nvidia drivers with older kernels and older distributions (Mandrake 10.0), never had any trouble

I was reading some comments on the nvidia drivers on happypenguin.org, some people reckon the older drivers perform better with older cards.

However older drivers don't always work with the latest kernel.

From what I've heard ATI drivers are not as good and don't work as well.

If I was looking for a new gfx card, I would most likely go with nvidia, even though their drivers are closed. It's not like I'm going to die or anything if I have a peice of closed-source software on my Linux box...Wed, 07 Dec 2005 02:59:00 GMTdonotreply@osnews.com (amaze_9)CommentsUhhhhhhttp://www.osnews.com/thread?69509
http://www.osnews.com/thread?69509Why do osnews discussions always end up with a couple of strong opinionated people telling everyone else why they're wrong.

Linux is Poo, why do you even post on Linux related articles. Many of us like Linux, I also use windows often but there is many things I enjoy about the Linux experience that I simply can't get from windows. This article happens to be about what many of us consider an important advancement in the Linux world.